Right-wing Hindus have resorted to terrorism, says Kamal Haasan

CHENNAI: Indian actor Kamal Haasan has alleged that right-wing Hindus have started employing and resorted to terrorism to propagate their communal agenda.

In a column in a Tamil magazine, the 62-year-old actor said the right-wingers could no longer say to show a Hindu terrorist if you can. “Terrorism has spread into their fold also,” he said.

“Earlier, the right-wing Hindus employed debates, and not force, against people of other religions. Having realised that their attempts are failing, they have started using violence.”

However, the Tamil film icon who has been hinting at joining politics said that since “this old conspiracy” had begun to fail, the groups were indulging in violence.

“This is not a victory or a sign of progress. If we start believing that force will prevail and not truth, then we will all turn into violent beasts.”

Through the column, Kamal responded to a question by Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan who had sought the actor’s opinion on the attempt by Hindutva forces to infiltrate into Tamil Nadu.

Kamal wrote: “Only change is permanent. No matter how many forces push it back, Tamil Nadu will once again prevail as the forerunner in social reforms. Kerala is standing as an example today. Congrats for that.”

Kamal pointed out that Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian tradition is thousands of years old and said the social revolution brought on by Ramanujam 1,000 years ago is a landmark.

Kamal wrote, “There is no possibility that the attempt by fascists to shift the world towards the right will succeed. The shift towards the right is only a temporary fashion, a cosmetic change. It will not last.

“The backward old generation, particularly those belonging to the upper castes, rattled by the equality evolving in society, is trying to feed their caste-driven, backward ideology to the young generation by sugar coating it and presenting it as a modern idea.”

Stating that the affinity that human race has towards science and wisdom will draw them towards rationalism despite opposition, Kamal said, “The youth in the state are not waiting for the change to happen. They have stepped into the fray to protect Tamil Nadu.”

According to him, the conservatives are not stressing on what needs to be learned from the past tradition. “Destroying agriculture for commercial gains and selling mythology as history are evils they have been tirelessly carrying forward for ages,” he wrote.